Time to get ready to fight Disease X

Because the world was caught off-guard, Covid-19 became a pandemic and resulted in millions of deaths. — 123rf.com

The numbers of microorganisms with the potential to harm humans is very large, but the resources for research and development (R&D) are limited.

To address this problem, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened a panel of scientists and public health experts in December 2015 to prioritise the top five to 10 emerging pathogens likely to cause severe outbreaks and the greatest public health risk in the near future, because of their epidemic potential and/or for which few or no medical countermeasures exist.